Preference for our game assets

128x128? Wow that is big! I can do alot in 64x64. Well, once the new site, udevgame, tutorials posted - then my to-do list is complete; I can start to pump out more stuff.

What 3d program do I use? All of 'em except for Maya which I can not afford yet. Maybe if they give me a review copy then I will be set

Last year I started to make a neat Isometric dungeon tile-set. (Like Diablo) Things were looking neat but I got side-tracked. I also attempted to use Bryce to make isometric tiles, but their camera angles don't allow for correct isometric views. (Too difficult to explain) That is a shame as it could make neat tiles I think. I will have to check out Bryce 5 if that has been solved. Or focus on Eon's 3d terrain program or ZBrush.

I do have MANY high-polygon count models (like Mechs) but need to reduce them in size.

When making a map for coldstone..I was struck with the whole Tile Concept and it really bugged me..I just don't think in this Piece the swaure Puzzle together graphic methodology. Well not since BASIC.

I can't remember whether I tried to Slice my large (enourmous) map into tiles with Graphic converter. But with De-babelizer I was able to take the enourmous Map and turn it into some 1,000+ tiles.
This was probably overkill and I did this because it was a top view of a 3D scene I'd created. It was my first experiment and it was based on the map size and number of tiles placed in the Coldstone Tutorial.

There's an awful lot of Programmers here..could ya'll get together and brainstorm a technique for making tiles from images..or a tile resource for that matter? That way artists could supply a complete image and then the app would do the breaking down into tiles based on some parameters the game maker needs? like 100x100 squares @ 32x32 or oops wrong map kind make it 100x100 @ 128x128...for example.

Just a thought.

isn't the .obj format from Alias Wavefront?
I think you all should stick with 3DS since it is fairly standard and cross platform. I don't see any of the PC people using .obj format and meshwork doesn't support it...

Meshwork's format is fairly cool for games but it needs some better texture viewing/editing methods (like a complete mesh spread out that can slap into photoshop..it almost does this trick..but it needs to be more robust.

Its low in price which opens it up to more people, especially if hobbyists want to try a hand at the whole 3D game thing...it outputs to 3DS..and ye olde 3DMF.

Meshwork also appears fairly versatile..Check out 20th Century Arial Joust (TACS)..and then compare to..Tobi's Engine..totaly different sides of the coin. I was blown away when I found TACS using Meshwork after working on Tobi's engine. Here I was slaving away at Polygon after polygon..and TACS is just lines an points...amazing! What else can be done!?!?!

With OpenGL you could easily render in 2D...but have all the animations of a 3D file!!

So you developers there...try meshwork..see how the file format might suit your needs. Its low cost alone could make a big difference in the amount of artists that can work on your games.

(Psst...most of the time I'm pulling my hair out and cursing the app...until my models WORK in the game..then I'm laughing my butt off and having a good old time!)

griffin, we HAVE some tools on this site that will do what you want! Search for them.

>isn't the .obj format from Alias Wavefront?
Yes, and I have found support for it in many Mac apps. 3DS is also in many apps, however the otheer Max format is not.. what the heck is it called, something like .max

When I get time, I'll have to re-load Meshwork. But I think I'd rather use something else to make my model parts, align them, import in Meshwork, and then set up whatever bones. etc I need.

Well I don't actually intend on using tiles myself.
I was thinking of those who requested it. I'm no big fan of tiles.

.Max is StudioMax's propietary format, which stores all the plugin data from a studiomax scene and then uses that to build a model from the saved data upon launching the data..assuming the plugins exist in the Studio Max you are using. I can't imagine any Mac app being able to do it since Studio Max is totaly PC, unless someone wants to translate studioMax plugins to other apps. In theory a Sphere, Cube, Cone etc..is built entirely with Plug ins in Studio Max.

Torque comes with these tools, but so far I have not seen anyone build them for the Mac. I've included short notes from the read me files it comes with where it came with one.

map2dif

max2dtsExporter
Installation
Place the file 'dtsexport.dle' in the Max 'Plugins' directory.

max2mapExporter
ms2dtsExporter
texture2bm8

If I knew what I was doing with code I'd build them...but I'm at a loss to figure it out. I get 1152 errors when trying to compile map2dif. Dif being the torque/half-life interior format (inside buildings etc). So far I have to rely on Pc users to get some usuable models for Torque...and of courses..Nothing has been produced in 2.5 months.

I've sent a message to investor relations at garage games to see what the license for the tools to source is. Although looking over those filenames it all seems very very .MAX specific...pretty useless if they require StudioMax entirely.

So for the time being..lets all just forget about .MAX on the Mac.
Its my understanding that on its own .Max format is useless for games ...you would need to write StudioMax as the base of your engine.